Over This
by AshleyKay
Summary: Arnold comes to visit Helga in India, three years after they broke up. Arnold/Helga


_**Over This**_

_I own nothing. _

_The parts that are centered are excerpts from Helga's novel._

* * *

It starts in Summer, the kind of day that leaves skin parched and raw, red over white and she's only half way through the morning.

She sighs, wipes her moist skin and thinks about calling Phoebe half a world away.

Scratching lazily at her ankle she thinks of what she would say, that's she lonely and tired and she's misses her best friend.

Maybe, she'd ask it visit and stay with her and Gerald and sleep for long lazy days on their Hillwood couch. Maybe, she wonders if she should ask Phoebe to come her. To bask in the sun and talk about things so long past they've turned to dust and air.

Instead she looks from the window at the dry barren land and twirls the pen in her hands.

There's another twenty pages to write and maybe a painting to finish, an apartment to sweep up and a life to keep on living.

… and there with in the breaths end, was our lasting

hope. His mouth hovered over mine and I moved

in, it would be our last kiss. Our last moment.

I would die with the taste of him lingering in me.

The phone buzzing at her side, tore her thoughts away from dying moments and goodbyes that were sure to fade into nothingness.

Arnold.

She pushed from her mind, they're last talk.

They agreed friends was all they could be. She hadn't cried. And he hadn't apologized.

But somehow, the ache for him hadn't fade with a year and a half apart.

She told herself that friends answered their phones.

"Hey, Arnold."

"I was starting to worry you weren't going to pick up."

"I was debating it." She doesn't bother to hide the smile or the twinge of bitterness.

"Nevermind."

"Oh, silly Football Head, just tell me okay. I haven't got all day here. You can't call and then not tell me why you did. It'll plague me."

"Well if you don't even want to pick up the phone for me I wonder how you're going to react to seeing me."

"Of course I want to see you. I miss you." She tries hard not to recall those silly moments of before, when he had loved her. Those foolish little girl seconds when her whole world had been him and nothing else. How after everything, it had ended not with a bang but a whimper.

She imagines him in an airport, with sad green eyes and laugh lines bellowing around his mouth.

She thinks she'd love him more.

But it's been far to long and not enough time at all.

"I miss you too." He finally says. And in his voice she hears the barest hint of a smile.

"When are you-"

"I'm flying out now, well, obviously not right now, but well, in an hour?"

"Last minute, huh, what if I hadn't been home, bucko, or Criminy what if I'd been entertaining." She huffs and lets her pen wander.

"I didn't know I'd be all the way out there till yesterday. You're all I could think of."

"Free room and board, huh. Well you're just lucky you're one of my best friend otherwise…" She doesn't finish but stretches her arms. The heat is worming it's way on her skin and she feels like sleeping and walking and staying as still as possible.

"Well, it wasn't just the room and board, but it didn't hurt."

The moments slow between them, she asks him why and he tells her of a grant and an adventure. And where better than India.

When it's over and she's left to the silence she stares at the white paper and the bending lines and sees in the corner a perfect heart.

She crumples up the page and starts again.

Ten hours later, she's standing at the airport, her face half caught between fear and anticipation.

But she hugs him when she sees him, like all the things that had happened are nothing more than dust on cupboards.

"I know I said it before" he pulls back just enough to see himself in her eyes, "but I've missed you."

She smirks and pulls on old defenses. "Yeah, well don't go getting a big-ger head. Football face."

He just pulls her closer.

She remembers suddenly that first kiss, not the ones that were all her, but the first one, where his hands had rested on her waist and she'd leaned in and he'd kept her. She remembered he tasted of raspberries.

"So, adventure."

"Yeah. Well, archeology."

"I thought they were one and the same?"

"Despite what Indiana Jones would have you believe, you don't run into as many booby traps or as many Nazi's trying to kill you."

She pulls herself away and grabs one of his bags.

"To bad, there for awhile I thought what you did was cool." She grins sideways and keeps him at arms length.

"And what about you, Miss give up everything and start over a thousand miles away."

"Actually that's over seven thousand miles away, at least from Seattle." She keeps peering at him from the corner of her eyes, the changes in his face are careful and new and she wishes she had the courage to tell him everything.

"It's been to long. Almost what three years?" His fingers fiddle with the zipper of his suitcase and she things, no, no it's been two years, six months and fifteen days. She has it imprinted on her weary worn heart.

She settles for, "Yeah, something like that. So, Arnoldo, when did you get so old?"

He laughs and she grins and for a minute, she can't remember how it ever got to be this way.

* * *

"_I'm sorry." His fingers are like wind on her skin._

"_Yeah."_

"_Helga. Please… talk to me. I need you to say something."_

"_I said yeah, what would you have me say, Arnold." She kept her eyes open, strained hard to keep anything from showing._

"_Say you hate me, say you think I'm a jerk, say-"_

"_I forgive you. It happened it's over, you're telling me before you doing anything. Just like always. It's all about-" She clamps her jaw shut. She's babbling, she's afraid. She's…she closes her eyes. She wasn't going to cry._

"_Don't forgive me."_

"_It never would have lasted anyway, Arnold. Me and you? It's laughable. I mean I was in school here and you were have a world away. Of course you're going to find someone else, you and I never made any sense at all. So stupid. So young. So…" She still hasn't opened her eyes._

"_Open your eyes, Helga. And call me Football Head or Bucko or anything but Arnold."_

"_It's your name right?" She looks down and opens her eyes. She wasn't going to break in front of him. _

"_You never call me by my name."_

"_Another reason this was stupid."_

"_We weren't stupid."_

"_Then why are we here?"_

_When she looks at him, his skin is pale and his eyes are sad. _

_She wishes she had it in her to really hate him. _

"_I…"_

"_You like someone else, you don't want to be with me."_

"_We're so far apart, I hardly ever see you."_

"_I know." She does. But maybe loving him so long built her to love him always, no matter how far he roamed._

"_Say something."_

"_I know." Is all she can think to say. He doesn't love her. They aren't together anymore. All those promises, all those nights. His kiss. His face. Him. She knows._

_That's all that's left._

* * *

"It's not much of a place I guess." She drops his bags in the bedroom.

"There's only one room."

She rolls her eyes. "Doi. What do I look like a millionaire?"

"Well, I'm not going to take your bed."

"You will if I say you will!"

"I won't." He grabs the bag and she tries to yank it from him.

"WILL."

"WON'T."

She huffs. "The sofa in the front room is a hide-a-way. I sleep there most nights anyway. I don't really sleep well."

"I can sleep-"

She shakes her head and drops her side of the luggage. "Didn't you hear me. I don't sleep. I don't want to be in here and besides, my work is in the front room, by the window. I prefer it out there. You'd be putting me out more if you stayed there."

She turns away from his look.

"Promise?" She bites back the comment sitting like bullets on her tongue.

"Yeah, football head, I do."

Before she's out the door his fingers are on her arm. "Helga…I just want you to know-"

"I know." She shrugs him off and runs for the front room. It's dusty and warm and the streets are grey and red.

She misses the blue of Hillwood and the rain.

Misses home.

But isn't sure how to get back.

Or even if, after all this time, there's a back to get to.

"How do you?"

"What?" She doesn't turn back to look at him, she knows his face better than her own. Even if it's lined and worn.

Especially so.

"How do you know what I was going to say?"

"I know you. I've always known you." I always will. She thinks. But it seems to trite to say.

"Then what?"

"You were going to say, that's not what I meant. But you were thinking, won't you ever let it go, we're suppose to be friends. Best friends. But you're still bitter and I'm still trying to always say the right thing. Only, Arnold, there's no right thing to say." Down on the street there's a group of kids playing stickball and she wishes it were a hundred years ago.

"I'm sorry."

"I know." She smirks but it feels more like crying.

"Maybe if we just talked about it."

"What's there to say that we didn't say then. Don't get me wrong, I'm not dead without you. I still go out and I date and I've even maybe fallen in love. At the very least a certain amount of lust. There were others Arnold. Only. God. I don't know. It's like your this ghost, slinking around me, and it's okay when your gone. It's fine when I hear from you on the phone, and I know someone's there. I just remind myself how young we were and how stupid and how…were not those kids. And it's fine. But then, sometimes, when it's so hot and I'm lonely, I remember you and I miss you. Not this way. But then. I miss you then." When she looks at him, he's older than she remembers and his green eyes are still soft and warm. She can tell his going to reach for her. Take her and hug her and… she shakes her head. "I'm being insane. It's the writer in me. I just can't stop. It's okay. I'm being silly in my memories. You're happy and despite the speech, I'm happy to. I just broke up with someone and it's always then. I get sad then because I wonder if…"

"You'll always be alone?"

"No, I wonder if I'll ever find someone that makes me passionate. I'm happy alone, but I've always needed someone to love. To focus on."

He wraps himself around her.

He still smells of Hillwood and thousand minute plane ride.

She doesn't pull away.

"I was going to say, that I wanted you to know, that I've never missed anyone as much as I've missed you. That I can't stand sleeping in the bed I know you've shared with others."

She decides it can't hurt to hold him tighter.

* * *

"_I can't believe it. It's all over tomorrow." He wipes his hands on his pants and looks at her wistfully._

"_Right, Football head. We just stop living tomorrow."_

"_You know what I mean, Helga." _

_She shakes her head. "Nothing has to be over, it's like, I don't know, a restart."_

"_A beginning." _

"_Doi. That's what I just said." But she leans on his shoulder, he smells of dirt and time and a hint of love._

"_This doesn't mean we have to change." His fingers cup her knee. The sky in Hillwood is bright and deep. She can't see the stars or the moon. She kisses him anyway. _

"_Promise me something, Arnold." _

"_Anything."_

"_That you won't fall out of love with me. Even when you go to your far away school. Even when you see all those girls. Promise that this is real."_

"_I promise."_

_She grins against his lips and she can feel his silent laugh._

_She's never been this happy._

* * *

He's gone by the morning. A note on the 'fridge and flowers in a vase and she alone.

She pulls out her pen and stares out the window.

She wishes it was easier than this.

"Do you love me, Terri?"

She laughed, hadn't she always, wasn't she sharing her last moments

with him. Tasting him, loving him. The end of the world

was unraveling around them.

"Do you even need to ask?"

"Then why are you so eager to die alongside me?"

"Helga!"

She flipped the page over and saw him at the door juggling food and more flowers and she laughed.

"Help me, Helga, don't laugh at me."

She plucks the food from his hand. "Laughing at you is what I do."

For a moment, it seems like his going to lean over and kiss her. Tell her his home and it's always been this way.

He sticks out his tongue instead.

She doesn't much feel like laughing anymore.

"What'd you bring for dinner?"

"Food."

"Haha."

They eat in silence and she isn't afraid. Afterwards, they're sitting close and watching t.v. that they can't understand.

"I still love you, Arnold."

"Helga."

She doesn't close her eyes this time. "I know." She grins and keeps staring at him. "I say that a lot. But I do. I know it's stupid. I know it's been to long and it's just…we're so wrong. But I do. Not because I can't be happy without you. But because, I'm happiest with you."

"I…" He looks anywhere but her. "I think I should go to bed. I have work tomorrow."

"Say you don't love me."

"I do."

"You know what I mean, Football Head. Say it."

"I can't. Because, I do. But it's not enough."

"Since when has Mr. SunnySide, not believed in the power of love."

"Since you couldn't stand me."

"I could always stand you."

"You hated me."

She laughs again, "I never hated you. I wanted to. But at the time, I didn't… I still didn't believe you could love me."

"Why?"

"Because no one but you and Phoebe ever did."

He doesn't move. "It was so hard."

"The good things often are."

"I love you, Helga."

And it's enough to start with.

* * *

"_So that's it." _

_She didn't make a sound. What more was there to say. _

"_You like me?" His eyes squinted at her, like he was hope the lie would seep out of her skin._

"_Doi. I just said that. I like you. Okay. I do. I want…" She trailed off and took a deep breath. This was it. The now, the moment. She had nothing to really lose. He knew. And she just wanted him._

_She kissed him. _

_It wasn't like before, she didn't hold him or crush him. _

_It was air and softness, she thought maybe if she wasn't Helga G. Pataki she might cry. It felt more like a goodbye then a revelation. _

"_Helga." His breath was on her lips and her eyes were still closed. Helga doesn't cry. _

"_What." _

"_I think maybe" she kept her eyes closed and imagined the pyramids and the Great Wall of China, things that had stood forever, she would become them. "maybe, it would be best if…" His fingers ran across her cheek. "open your eyes, I can't talk to you if you're eyes are closed."_

"_Maybe, Arnoldo, I don't want to open them. Maybe it helps me if their shut." She was afraid that being Helga wasn't enough to stop the tears._

"_Fine." His lips were on hers this time. _

_When he pulled back, he was smiling and her eyes were wide open. "I think I might like you too."_

_She always knew it would happen. _


End file.
